Big Apple, Rotten Like The Rest

It just doesn’t look right or feel right or smell right. There is something very troubling about the entire process we are all following on the way to the White House. It just feels dirty and it feels like nobody really cares about who you or I cast our votes for. Some people don’t get to vote at all and we are told, “hey that’s the way it’s done.” Well where I come from that is certainly not the way it’s done. Not by a long shot.

Let’s start on the left. There are back room deals and super delegates for the Democrats that put Hillary Clinton way out in front even though Bernie Sanders has conducted a powerful grass roots effort and has blown away the frontrunner with his ability to raise huge amounts of cash. In fact Bernie is burning it up on the trail when it comes to bringing in the money. He has brought in more donations than Clinton several times in recent months. Yet he has almost no chance at this point of becoming the Democratic nominee for President. This is true despite the fact that Sanders has won eight out of the last nine contests. However in places like Colorado, despite posting a big win, Clinton leaves with almost as many delegates as Bernie. How can that be? Well to the casual observer there is a word for it, rigged. Another term for such allegiance from Democratic operatives who have declared their allegiance to Hillary is bought and paid for.

The tide however may be turning albeit slowly. Sanders has cut Clintons lead in the biggest prize of the season so far New York, to single digits. At one time Clinton, who was of course a US Senator from the Empire State held a 50-point advantage. This really is the whole ballgame as far as I’m concerned. If Hillary can put up a solid victory Bernie’s days might be numbered but if he can pull the Big Apple upset, then all bets are off. It would put Hillary Clinton and her team into a full-blown panic. Well, can you blame them? They all thought the nomination was theirs for the taking in 2008 when a Junior Senator from Illinois jumped into the race and changed everything.

There are more than a few Democrats right now that think Madam Secretary could be in trouble again. This time the threat coming at her is from a guy who isn’t even a Democrat. For all the talk of the trouble with the Republicans, it seems the Democrats have a huge mess on their hands too.

The GOP is deep in the political swamp too I can assure you. The frontrunner is a guy who has held just about every position possible on every major campaign issue there is and sometimes in the very same speech. Donald Trump was supposed to fizzle out last year and be nothing but a footnote to the whole conversation at this point with Jeb Bush or Chris Christie leading the charge. As we all know that didn’t happen. Instead the boisterous billionaire has lit a prairie fire of populist support and a host of other political fires with his relentless barrage of insults and personal attacks on a host of people. Trump however keeps carrying the torch forward with the hope of securing 1237 delegates before the party ends up in Cleveland in July.

You’d think it was pretty simple but this past weekends Colorado gathering of Republicans has lit yet another fire. This one is aimed at the GOP establishment that has made no secret of trying to block the Donald from ever getting on the ticket for the fall. You see last year Colorado Republicans decided not to have folks vote at all. It’s not the way I would do things but it is their party. The problem is all 37 Republican delegates went to Senator Ted Cruz who will soon be mathematically eliminated from getting enough to win the nomination himself. Trump is crying foul, which it isn’t but make no mistake it looks terrible. It looks to people around the country that the GOP really doesn’t care who votes or for whom or that Trump has two and a half million votes more than anyone else. It also gives the appearance right or wrong that Ted Cruz is cheating and therefore branding him even deeper with the moniker nailed to his forehead by Trump, ‘Lyin Ted.’

Then there is the sad and twisted tale of the Governor from Ohio, John Kasich, who cannot possibly win but refuses to leave anyway. He is like the last guy at a house party who is never going to get a date so he walks around at four in the morning gulping down leftover beers out of plastic cups.

Kasich’s grand plan is to tie his entire candidacy to the fact that he won his home state of Ohio and nobody can be President without Ohio so therefore- he has to be the guy. He will go to the convention, hoping no one has 1237 delegates needed to nominate and then the party will turn to him in it’s time of need. The problem is, just the like the guy with no date at the party, the pretty girls think he’s a little bit creepy because he just won’t leave and by now it seems many of the voters think so too. Being a stalker is not a great plan to win a political race. I’m just saying.

This brings us back to New York again. Donald Trump is running away with it but Ted Cruz and John Kasich are not ready to concede. It seems they may never be. Cruz is hoping he can outplay Trump with his organization on the ground and that has certainly been working to a certain degree. Kasich just doesn’t know when to leave and it seems the establishment may be propping up what is left of his dignity.

There is a lot to watch on the way to New York- the problem is on both sides it looks like the fix is in. Hillary has her super delegates while the Republican establishment is willing to do just about anything to stop Trump. Like The Rolling Stones famously said, “go ahead bite the Big Apple, don’t mind the maggots.”